College hosts Lanscapes of the Spirit event

By CORA HADDAD news Writer

o n Friday afternoon, Julianne Wallace, s aint m ary’s c ollege vice president for mission, opened the first Landscapes of the s pirit event since before the pandemic with a prayer. The intention of this Landscapes of the s pirit was to highlight “ s tories of h ope.” o riginally from Texas, Labadie studied at s aint e dward’s University in Austin for her undergrad. Labadie spoke on her introduction to the c ongregation of h oly c ross, their beliefs and how those beliefs impacted her life.

Landscapes of the s pirit is a s aint m ary’s c ollege tradition that gives a platform to faculty and staff to share their experience of mission at the c ollege, what brought them to their place at the institution, as well as their passions. The event was held in the s tapleton Lounge, as well as being live streamed on Youtube and will have more installations throughout the coming semester. Landscapes of the s pirit is sponsored by s aint m ary’s c ollege d ivision for m ission.

The first speaker was n icole Labadie, the director of campus ministry. Labadie worked in ministry for eight years previous to her time at s aint m ary’s, having joined the campus ministry team in o ctober of 2022.

“It was the brothers that first sort of exposed me to the c ongregation of h oly c ross, its charism, the way it sees the world and this education impacted me it formed me so deeply and it’s part of the way in which I since then and since that time have continued to see the world,” Labadie said. “The c ongregation of h oly c ross helped me to for the first time as a college student see beyond myself, see beyond

Texas, beyond our country to our brothers and sisters across the world to care for social justice and to live this sort of radical hospitality.” s he continued to share her journey through working ministry in higher education and elaborated on how she more permanently made s outh b end her home and place of work. s he went on to explain what s aint m ary’s represents to her. “For me, s aint m ary’s really embodies this understanding of vocation as the place of intersection where our deep Joys meets the world’s deep hunger there is a lot of work to be done but I am hopeful and I am hopeful because of the mission of this place,” Labadie said.

Labadie explained the specific affinity she held for s aint Andre b essette, through her time as an undergraduate. “This very ordinary man who God did extraordinary things through and so he, along with m oreau, have sort of informed a lot of my thinking,” she said.

After her time at s aint e dward’s, Labadie continued her education at the University of n otre d ame, pursuing a m aster’s degree in d ivinity. This is where she found a worship community with the s isters at o ur Lady of Loretto. Labadie elaborated on her past experience with worship and c atholic mass as a whole.

“I had always been a c atholic who sort of struggled with the monotony of liturgy and the mass and I have to work sort of really hard to pay attention to the words that are so familiar that we just sort of say from a place of memory. For me, it was worship at Loretto that really helped me experience the liturgy in a new way to really fall in love with it. To see what it means to be a diverse church” Labadie said.

In her time at n otre d ame, Labadie worked as an assistant rector in Pasquerilla e ast (P e ). s he revealed that it was this experience that helped her discern her passions.

“It was sort of recognizing the beauty of ministering and accompanying women that led me to pursue campus ministry,” Labadie said.

Wallace shared her story next. Wallace explained how she found a deep-rooted understanding and passion for charism. h aving grown up in the c atholic faith and having attended c atholic school, Wallace continued her pursuit of this education at the Washington Theological Union. “This was all well and good until my 27th year of life when I was maturing in age and maturing and wisdom and understanding but not in faith and I found myself at the Washington Theological Union studying theology,” Wallace explained.

In her explanation of charism, she identified multiple reasons why it is so important to her, such as the aspect of community that charism creates, and the impact of that community. “You need a community to tell your story and to be with you while you are that prophetic witness for the world and the great thing about this community is it’s not those people here in this room it’s not just those people on YouTube it’s the people that have gone before us the stories of those people that we tell now today and it’s also those people down the road that are going to follow us and tell us about their great stories,” Wallace said.

Wallace also expressed her love for storytelling, and the difference telling stories has on communities and individuals themselves. s imilar to Labadie, Wallace also found a place worshiping with s isters at o ur Lady of Loretto, virtually through the pandemic.

“These stories are who we are and inform who will who we will become in the future because identity is not static it is changing so I love storytelling I think that’s one of the things like hanging out with these religious men and women and hearing their stories and hearing the stories of their Founders it just energized me the characteristic of charism that speaks to me the most,” Wallace said.

Wallace discussed her process of coming to s aint m ary’s c ollege, which was inspired by her interest in institutional vocation.

“I thought I would never go back to school I went to pursue my doctor of ministry and with this focus on understanding the many different vehicles and ways we can use vocation and I ended up writing a doctoral thesis on institutional vocation which brings an understanding beyond the personal where each called to something I wanted to study who are institutions as corporates entities are not corporate as in making the money but as a communal body together who is s aint m ary’s c ollege called to be in this time and place and I actually think Art and s cience and the signature experience and all that informs who that will be to we continue so that’s how I ended up as a mission officer,” Wallace explained.

“I instantly felt the radical h ospitality of the h oly c ross tradition like two minutes on to zoom, it may have had something to do with the pajamas and coffee that I was in on my couch very relaxed but I could just tell I felt most at home in a community more so than any other worshiping c ommunity I’d ever been in,” Wallace described.

The community, she explained, is what truly brought her to the s outh b end area. “I was a member of the c hurch of Loretto starting in s eptember of 2020 even though I’d never stepped foot in the church and I knew that I needed to end up in s outh b end somehow,” Wallace said.

Wallace ended her s tory of h ope with a statement regarding her understanding of purpose in her life. “God has placed us here to do good work together, and I feel that as I look around at the women that I work with on the senior leadership team the executive team, as I look around at all of you here today and as I imagine the wonderful beautiful faces of those who are watching on YouTube, it just seems like each of us has been individually placed here for some definite purpose and that purpose is to empower women and all of those faculty and staff that are around us today to do good things to be that prophetic witness to share in the charism and the hope of h oly c ross,” she concluded.

The event ended with a brief Q and A session and an invitation to the audience to reflect. Landscapes of the s pirit series continues Thursday, Feb. 9 at 12 p.m., with s tories of d iscovery, from speakers c hristin Kloski and Patti s ayer, located in s aint m ary’s s tapleton Lounge as well as live-streamed on YouTube.

Contact Cora Haddad at chaddad01@saintmarys.edu justice system.” h e also said the pipeline disproportionately affects students with disabilities and students from low-income families. m cKenna said that this marginalization continues today. “We have continued to marginalize, to criminalize and to exclude people of color from the American education system and this is how we ended up with a system of punishment and reward and absolute black-and-white ideas about what is acceptable behavior in schools,” she said.

Professor of the practice m aria m cKenna explained that education has been politicized since the beginning of public education in the mid1800s. s he called upon literacy tests, school segregation and poll taxes as examples of how, historically, b lack people have been excluded from education.

According to Kareemah Fowler, the chief financial officer for the s outh b end c ommunity s chool c orporation ( sbcsc ), many students who act out in school are suffering from unresolved trauma and a lack of positive reinforcement at home.

These students come to school needing more help and support, but the school isn’t able to provide it. “We respond with discipline instead of with support because that’s often cheaper and easier in some ways,” m c d evitt said.

As a result of disciplinary policies, students are suspended or sent home, rather than being at school where they can learn and be loved by meaningful mentors and role models, m c d evitt said.

“We must work to reduce punitive measures, such as suspensions and expulsions, and instead focus on restorative justice practices that help students learn from their mistakes and make amends,” Lee said. s upport for communities happens at the local level, m cKenna said.“ e veryone [has] a role to play in dismantling what we think of as the school-toprison pipeline,” she said.

Fowler discussed the importance of aligning the s outh b end school’s strategic plan with policies to dismantle the pipeline. In her position as c F o , she worked to pass a tax referendum to provide students who need extra support with resources. s he also worked to supply teachers and staff with resources to deal with these issues and learn how to implement restorative justice practices.

Fowler explained that these are issues that schools can’t face alone and that families can’t fix alone.

“ o ne of the pillars of the strategic plan was community partners because we know that these are systemic issues,” she said.

According to m cKenna, that could look like mentoring a child, volunteering at the polls for local elections or supporting a community racial or social justice group.

Contact Caroline Collins at ccolli23@nd.edu understanding of burnout and how it’s defined academically was a challenge i’m not sure we anticipated when the project started.”

Licenses to the measure can be purchased by companies and employees, according to muir.

“it is my hope that companies use [the tool] in their climate surveys to check in on their employees,” muir said. “They might use it to track trends over time or to see how a large-scale change initiative has impacted their employees.” calderwood said the tool will be important for employees in high-stress occupations, including nursing and teaching, which have previously experienced